The Spinach Diggers of 1937

Well, they can't ALL be about extraordinary circumstances!  Popeye and Olive have been full-fledged celebrities for a while now, but now it's time to reach beyond their borders.  And just as Garth Brooks became Chris Gaines, and Stephen King became Michele Bachmann... Popeye is now Popito and Olive now Olivita.  You know, to win back the Spanish and or Mexican demographic after the damage caused by Blow Me Down!  
The dancing duo has posters all over town advertising their show times.  The posters are a big hit... but not with everybody.  And by everybody, I mean Bluto.  Bluto has this bad habit of punching poster Popito in the face!  We follow him around a while as he goes from poster to poster.  One in particular stands apart from the rest... is it wrong of me to like that?  Most likely.  Bluto makes his way to Wimpy's Café to wait for Olive in person.  Olive and ... I'm sorry, Popito and Olivita... so confusing... arrive in a town car with their noses held high.  Primadonnas!  As Olivita makes her way to the backstage entrance, Bluto rudely grabs her and asks her out for a date.  Olivita strongly refuses and slams the door on Bluto's face.  Bluto punches another Popito poster... but this time a goat sticks its head out and bleats at Bluto!  Is it just me or does the goat sound a bit like Popeye?

ACT TWO - ...just once for old time's sake.  When Wimpy's the MC, especially at his own giant café, there will be consumption of hamboigahs.  This time, he's got a stack of them under his top hat, with a little stove and everything!  Lol.  Olive comes out and does a song.  I'm reminded of the opening number from Death Becomes Her.  Similar vibe.  Bluto boos and gets a radiator to join him in the hissing.  But Olivita's a pro, and she realizes that it's just Bluto doing the booing... nope, she's still shook up!  Time for the falling part of the rise and fall.  And then, it's time for the big dance number.  Bluto sabotages it with ice cubes from his table.  When Popeye grows wise, Bluto has to step up his game.  Bluto risks his manly image by joining Popito on stage in dance!  But as Stephen Colbert might observe, it's not gay because Bluto's only doing it to punch Popito in the face.  Time for all that practice on the posters to pay off.
Not for long, though.  Even though Bluto wins the fight and Popito's nearly unconscious, Olivita brings on the sacred can of spinach.  The spinach works its magic based on the situation at hand, and soon Popito's dancing up a spinach-induced fury... Russian style!  Well, what's the point in offending only one ethnic group?
As I said earlier, this one's more of a regular day in the life of Popeye (also, no 3D background!), but it tries to generate the usual agenda of excitement.  When Popeye and Olive... sorry, when Popito and Olivita get the best of Bluto, they have him in chains pulling a rowboat as he gets whipped, thereby tilling the soil for the finale of Popeye the Sailor meets Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, soon to come.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Biyi Bandele

Okay, so Bandele's only got one film so far, but look at the cast!  Chiwetel Ejiofor!  Need I say more?  I think not.  But there's Thandie Newton as well.  What more do you need?  I don't recognize any of the other names, anyhow.  Will Biyi Bandele take the American market by storm?  Not without a giant press blitz they're not!  Get cracking on it.

Bring the one the Mortals call Jane Foster BACK TO ME!!!!!!

Let's see what she has to say now about her beloved mortal flesh!  Seriously, though, why the Gods care about the box office this week or any week at all is beyond me.  But their adventures seem to do the trick, especially when presented by Marvel.  DC Comics just doesn't have that populist touch anymore since they got out of the Batman business.  Meanwhile, the other debut this week is the latest from Richard Curtis.  It's about time travel and it's called About Time.  Well, when time travel's involved, he doesn't have to worry about getting the soundtrack right, not like with Pirate Radio.

Short Reviews - October 2013

There's an irony there somewhere...


The Counselor - ...Uncle Hank?

Need for Speed - ...Pinkman?

Only Lovers Left Alive - Wow.  Even Jim Jarmusch is jumping on the vampire bandwagon.  It better be INDIE vampires, damn it!

Ender's Game - Just found out it's based on a bestselling book... now available at Safeway!  But I guess if you've got a name like Ender, sooner or later you're also bound to have a game.  An endgame, if you're really shooting to be iconic!

Django Unchained - Is it just me, or is there a rather lot of screaming in pain in Tarantino's movies?

About Time - Has Richard Curtis run out of cute titles?

Cabaret - Maybe it's just me, but I think Liza Minelli is to Cabaret what Holly Golightly was to Breakfast at Tiffany's

Casino - ...on YouTube?  For FREE?!!!!

Love Jones - ...on YouTube?  For FREE?!!!!

Original Gangstas - ...on YouTube?  For FREE?!!!

Maximum Overdrive - ...on YouTube?  For FREE?!!!!

The Legend of 1900 - ...on YouTube?  For FREE?!!!!

Raising Helen - ...on YouTube?  For FREE?!!!!  ...actually, that one I can understand.

Don't Poke until you see the Whites of their Eyes... in 3D!

Well, the Stooges tried to keep current on all the latest Hollywood fads, but they didn't stick with all of them.  They only did two shorts in 3D.  Now, Spooks I can understand... but Pardon my Backfire?  In retrospect, the daily goings-on at a car mechanic hardly seems like the stuff of 3D... and the Stooges must've thought so too!
But back to the instant case.  After retiring from the force with a nice pension in Tricky Dicks, they just can't quit the detective business.  It gets in the blood, and stays there, like strep or herpes.  But it's a hard business and a detective needs to get a lot of sleep.
In comes their latest case: a missing persons job.  It's a young lady, and she must be a young starlet on the make, because the photo of her looks like one that casting agents would normally look at.  Shemp says "That girl has a beautiful pair of eyes!"  Filthy old devil!  ...hey!  The hyperlinks are back!!!
Hmm... this plot seems familiar.  I know, I know, it's a little late to be thinking that.  But ... SPOILER ALERT... the ending does seem familiar.  The Stooges conquer their enemies with pies, and then the Stooges get pies thrown in their faces by a guy in a gorilla suit... I mean, an actual gorilla.  Not all the 3D effects are done to maximum effect here.  The pies, for instance.  They're thrown just past the camera too quickly to register.  But there's still one facet of Spooks! that makes it worth watching: the Shemp Bat!  "What a hideous, monstrous face!" says Shemp of the Shemp Bat, and Shemp quickly covers his own face.  Philip van Zandt's terrific as always as yet another evil scientist.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Bluto Durham

Ah, the sports-themed cartoon.  Is there any more reliable genre?  It's baseball season again for Popeye, and Popeye's Pirates are playing Bluto's Bulls.  And this time, Bluto's found a girl that's more his body type as opposed to the rail-thin Olive.  I think this is a first!  As you can see, Olive and Bluto's gal aren't getting along.
As with the previous Popeye called Hospitaliky, higher powers are monkeying with the rules of the spinach.  It's foreshadowed big time when Popeye starts to take to the field but forgets his spinach in his locker.  Then, he drops the can of spinach in front of Bluto.  Bluto eats the spinach himself and refills the can with "some weeds" next to the pitcher's mound.  Ah, the days before Astroturf.
Well, I don't have time to do my usual exhaustive play-by-play, but I'll hit some of the highlights.  The first time Popeye's up at bat, he mightily strikes out, causing tears to flow out of Olive's Pac-Man-shaped eyes.  Is this the end of Popeye as we know it?  Will it be Bluto eating the spinach on a regular basis?  Will the armies of darkness march all over the face of the Earth?  We'll just have to wait and see.
The score at one point: Bluto 21, Popeye 0.  Popeye tries the spinach, but it's Bluto's grass clippings in disguise and it just doesn't work.  Oh, and Popeye's got a team as well... but not for long!  Bluto hits the ball and the ball goes to each of Popeye's teammates and gives them a concussion.  Popeye is saved for last, of course.  Bluto stands there and laughs.  Having just knocked out the catcher, Bluto's reign of anarchy on the field begins.  Will no one stop this madman drunk with power?
Popeye's about as out as can be, but he's got one last trick up his sleeve... a packet of spinach seeds!  LOL.  Popeye quickly grows some spinach and gets back in the game... eerie.  We just saw The Illusionist last night!  Remember?  The orange tree... ah, skip it.  And so, Popeye wins the game at the last minute as can only be done in a cartoon... but with a twist.  Popeye gets to 22 points, literally with the help of Bluto turning into a number 2 on the scoreboard!!

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Troy B(e)yer Bailey

Oh, puh-leeeeeeze... No, no, she's quite good, actually.  And maybe she's proof of equality in Hollywood.  I mean, there's white folks out there who've made a movie as bad as B.A.P.S., am I right?  She didn't direct that one, however, but she did direct 1998's Let's Talk About Sex.  One of the things that is talked about is the idea that someday women can just walk around topless.  And I don't think they meant France.  I think they meant the good ol' US of A.  Of course, if they caught me staring, they'd quickly yell "Pervert!"  It seems like a good idea in theory, but I think most reasonable women understand that it's just not a good idea.  I barely think topless men is a good idea, and not just because I don't look good topless.
But ultimately you gotta hand it to Troy for enduring as long as she has, and she looks fabulous at almost 50!  As of this writing, it's a year and five days away.  I should get her a present!

Box Office ENDGAME

Damn.  Already squandered that hour I gained.  And it seems to have delayed the box office totals as well.  Gotta wait some more...............
(9:32pm) I KNEW I forgot something!  Well, go figure.  The ad campaign worked, and the young people are down with the latest fanboy phenom called Ender's Game.  One of the Armed Forces likes this book, or so I read on the movie's IMDb Trivia page.  And I like the book, too!  At least, as long as it doesn't lead to compulsory service.  Well, that's a young man's game, anyway, which I'm far too old for anyway.  I've been lucky, anyway, as no one's taken an interest in my dirt farm yet.
Well, enough discussion of Ender's Game.  Let's move on.  I get kind of a creepy church-y vibe from it anyway.  I have a feeling Harrison Ford's going to renegotiate his Star Wars and Indiana Jones 5 contracts!  At #3 comes the Adam Sandler comedy not starring Adam Sandler called Last Vegas.  Sandler will be doing films like this in about 20 to 30 years.  He can't fight it forever.  And last but not least it's Angry Birds: The Motion Picture... I'm sorry, it's actually called Free as a Bird, based on that new Beatles song... my God!  Has it been almost 15 years now?  I must be having a lot of fun, because time's sure flying... EIGHTEEN YEARS!!!!  Boy, that was fast.  Where was I?  Oh, right.  The movie's called Free Birds and... yup, another Pixar clone.  Its director is a guy named Jimmy Hayward.  Apparently he's in a big rush to be the next John Lasseter, but he's trying to do an end run around Pixar University to do it.  He's an old-fashioned schizophrenic auteur on the make.  His last pic was the critically beat up Jonah Hex, which was live action, incidentally.  Dude!  Make up your mind!  Oh right... that's what a true auteur does.  180 degree shifts in paradigms.  Take Kubrick, for example!  Going from 2001 to Clockwork Orange.  Now that's a big paradigm shift!  At least as far as the MPAA's concerned.

Vive La Cécile de France!

Sure, I could be cynical about Hereafter and say that screenwriter Peter Morgan's straying out of his Tony Blair-based comfort zone, that Cécile de France's character is much like Kristin Scott Thomas' character in The Horse Whisperer, that the movie wants to be Slacker but the interlapping stories get tied up a little too neatly... that maybe Clint's too old to be directing movies like this.  Oh snap!  Seriously, though, how much of that was shot with him on set or location?  I'm just saying it could be stressful at 80 years old, going from Frisco to London to Paris like that.
That being said, there's a couple big scenes here, mostly involving the young kid.  You'll know them when you see them.  And like my viewing companion, I did like Matt Damon's character, a psychic who's reluctant to get a reality show, unlike some.  And as much as I like Jay Mohr, would it have killed him to do his Christopher Walken impression?  Cowbell 2016!
Alas, I'm a bit more cynical about the transformative power of love, but Damon's character certainly deserves to find some happiness.  Stranger things have happened.  Also, the movie takes a conservative attitude about the public's perception of psychics, erring on the side that says psychics are a fringe group on the margins, ridiculed, hated, what have you.  But who knows?  Maybe we have the next wave of civil rights on our hands yet.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Next Stooge: Tricky... Richards

MORE BRILLIANCE!
Now, it's around this point that, with the untimely passing of Shemp, the Stooges begin phoning it in, but just before that they produced some of the best of the Stooge shorts.  Tricky Dicks is one of those shorts.  So sayeth me!
Now, normally the Stooges are just wannabe detectives taking up the slack from the real cops, but this time they're the real cops.  And sure, the non-Stooge gags are corny, and sure, they cribbed some of the file cabinet footage from previous shorts, but even the most jaded of hipsters can detect that the Stooges are aware of the clichés of these run-of-the-mill detective stories, and play them up for all they're worth.
I feel compelled to point out two character actors that passed through the rolling Stooge stock company: Benny Rubin and Phil Arnold, because they also play crucial parts in the upcoming Pardon My Backfire.  Spoiler Alert: Arnold's character was claiming to be the perpetrator of a high-profile murder in order to get in show business.  If I may be so bold, he might be better off sticking with Broadway, if you know what I mean... sorry, that was over the line.
That being said, I do have some plot point quibbles.  First of all, these things need a little oomph to juice up the dramatic tension.  In this case, the Stooges have 24 hours to solve a murder to take the heat off their boss.  The unsolved murder?  Of a guy named "Slug" McGurk.  Where's the heat coming from, exactly?  The mob?  Local politicians that care about the murder of a gangster?  Who knows, maybe it's the name of a priest.  Now, the Tricky Dicks "Goofs" page on the IMDb makes the point about the guy with the infinite clip in a six shooter.  We'll leave out for now that Shemp gets shot four times at point blank range in the stomach... and survives.  It's all for the end gag, folks.  Here's my goof that I'll add to that page someday... when the Stooge's boss, B.A. Baracas... I mean, Copper... hits the table ONE TIME, he gets hit with poker cards and chips THREE times.  I mean, c'mon, guys!  A little consistency here!
Yeah, the more I think about it, the less stars I want to give this.  So time to stop thinking.  A four-star classic.  Like Justin Bieber, lemme tell ya one time: this Stooge film's got everything a Stooge fan needs!

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Next Popeye: Hospitaliky... seriously? That's the title?

GENIUS!!!!!
...I guess I should probably say a little bit more.  Also, it's not one of the ones I usually watch.  It's a simple setup really: Olive is a nurse at an actual hospital this time, and not at the "Bruiser Boys" club.  Bluto starts pretending to be sick... you know, so Olive will be his nurse.  Popeye tries as well.  HOWEVER, Olive wasn't born yesterday.  She was born at night, but not last night.  Don't spit in her soup and say it's raining, basically!  She declares that the hospital is for people who are genuinely sick.  And so, off the two boys go into the animated world, much like Homer when he kept chanting to himself "Must... hurt... self..."  I believe it was in the episode right after the Halloween episode with Homer ^ 3 in it.  Somebody else confirm that for me, will you?
We follow Bluto and Popeye on their separate adventures.  Popeye ends up in a plane!  Bluto has a genuine accident on a motorcycle.  The ambulance comes and... well, you can probably guess what happens.  I sure hate to spoil it.  They eventually meet at the train tracks and fight over who will get hit by the oncoming train.  Sure, the Fleischers seem to have lifted some of the cels from the very first Popeye the Sailor cartoon called Betty Boop Presents Popeye the Sailor, but they did finally complete the part with the train going past, rather than Popeye punching it into submission.  Somebody busted their ass on that, lemme tell ya!
And then, the genius part... again, I hate to spoil it, but this cartoon is approaching its 80th birthday, so why not.  Normally, Popeye would eat his spinach and beat the s...snot out of Bluto, but he remembered that Olive is not a damsel in distress this time... so he feeds Bluto the spinach!  And so, for once, the tables are turned.  And as you can see from the expression on Bluto's face, even Bluto can't believe what's happening.  And sure enough, next scene: Popeye's in bed in a full body cast, being lovingly looked at by Nurse Olive.  The architecture of that hospital's a little weird, though, as an angry Bluto's right there, within reaching distance of Popeye, angrily looking on and wishing he was in a full body cast in a hospital bed.  Popeye toots his pipe twice, then sticks his tongue out at Bluto, saying "Nyaah!"  Brilliance!  Brilliance... I used the wrong word to begin this.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Stafford U. Bailey

Life gets in the way, which is especially true for our next auteur, Stafford U. Bailey.  What's a fella supposed to do?  He's strictly a documentary man; there's always worse parameters to stay within out there.  Okay, so he's less prolific than, say, Terrence Malick.  Now, some of you haters out there might say that an episode of "HBO: First Look" is barely a documentary, but credit where credit's due.  He's staying true to his subject matter!  I better just leave it at that.

Naughty boys!

Gravity four weeks in a row?  I haven't seen anything like it since Home Alone was #1 for TWELVE weeks!  Oh right... there's Titanic.  Point is, there's 52 weeks, but never 52 different films at #1!  Also, it's a little early.  Guess I just can't wait!

(Sunday)  Actually, when you get right down to it, there probably are a lot of bad grandpas out there, but Johnny Knoxville in makeup is funnier.  Is it just that he has a knack for picking the good projects?  I mean, couldn't Bam or that fat guy have done this just as well?  No, because Knoxville is to the Jackass group what Graham Chapman was to Python: the leading man.  And once again, they've targeted the right audience to make Bad Grandpa #1 at the box office this weekend.  Who could it be?  The young douchebags who still watch MTV?  Somehow The Counselor just didn't click with them, debuting at #4, despite the wall-to-wall ad campaigns, and despite the celluloid reunion of Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz.
On the other end of the top 10, 12 Years a Slave comes in at #8 with 3 million at the box office, and you know what that means!  Oscar nominations galore come three to four months from now.  Speaking of which, it's a season of one-timers.  I mean, more specifically ,Pulling Strings, Machete Kills and The Fifth Estate were only on the Top 10 for one week, and now they're gone.  But Enough Said is a virtual success story!  Not that Julia Louis-Dreyfus needs it, of course.  It's been hanging around for four weeks now.  Now, I'm probably the only one putting this one forward, but here goes anyway... Oscar nom for Gandolfini?  Sure, it's really the Oscar he should've gotten for... let's say Surviving Christmas.  But isn't it the thought that counts?

Quentin Tarantino's Perversions of History, or Death Cap for Q.T.

If I were a more intellectual writer, I would begin this by saying something like "The present continues to creep into the past."  The trend overall seemed to start most distinctly and expensively with 1999's Wild Wild West, which Django Unchained seems to pay indirect homage to throughout, and rather directly so with one of Jamie Foxx's outfits towards the end of the show.  And of course, the yearning for last generation's studio logos continues.  Superbad, Argo... the list goes on and on.
My two viewing companions had some criticisms.  One of them said it's not Quentin's best work.  I guess Pulp Fiction still is for them, and for me as well.  The other focused on the replica of Queen Nefertiti in the Candie household, which wasn't discovered until 1912 in Egypt.  (See also the IMDb Goofs page for Django)  But I'm sure Quentin could argue the consistency on that one.  Otherwise, the production design is top drawer, and certainly looks like there's $100 million worth of it on screen.
Now, as much as I hate to argue with the geniuses over at The Onion, my viewing companion parted company with them about Quentin's brief role as an Australian mining company employee.  My viewing companion felt that the contemporary music was a far greater distraction than Quentin's performance.  And to be fair, it's a less meaty role than, say, his role in Pulp Fiction.
Now, maybe I'm mistaken, but I noticed two things my own self.  1) Just as there are shouting matches in Spike Lee's movies, people seem to scream in pain a lot in Quentin's movies, and 2) the 'n' word.  I'm not sure if they used it too much or not enough.  Somehow it just didn't seem like the just right amount.  And how about those people who complain annually about the 'n' word in Mark Twain's works?  Whatever happened to 'sticks and stones will break my bones'?  Or, for that matter, the phrase "you've got too much time on your hands"?  In the Internet Age, it's not enough sleep.
Okay, here's a moment: SPOILER ALERT.  The big phrenology scene.  Here's my problem with it.  It was obviously geared for contemporary audiences since it leads to an explosive confrontation.  If it were really the late 1850s, the skull would have been sawed open long ago and used for "educational" purposes, at least by the standards of the time.  And the white people would probably talk slow to the black people; you know, just to rub it in that much further.  But I was actually more impressed with the research on Dumas.   Anything that gets me to go to Wikipedia is a small triumph.  Sure, we could quibble about fractions: half-black, quarter-black, whatever.  It's the impact of the moment that counts!
In any event, I look forward to the end of the Tarantino-Waltz trilogy in 2015... he's not going to be in Kill Bill Vol. 3, is he??!!

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Loose Loot Riles Stooges

I don't even have to watch this one!  Ah, what a classic, this young sapling bourne from the mother log that was Hold That Lion.  As the filmmakers inherently knew, the setup was just too good to use only once.  The lion stuff, however, was getting tiresome even by the Stooges' own low standards.  But Columbia was shooting a film that week about the antics backstage at a big Vaudeville theater.  In those days it took a lot longer for once thriving institutions to wither away, you see.
But I digress once again.  This is a blog, for God's sake!  Focus!  The point being that I and my viewing companions in our carefree youth made the most of our adolescence, including a proverbial Summer of Love that was spent watching the fruit-hurling sequence of Loose Loot.  Shemp seemed like a god back then, even at his advanced age.
Ah, but all was not happy in that fateful dressing room.  Take the Passion of the Moe, for example, when he gets lodged between the mattress and the front door with the giant head-sized hole in it.  Trial by fist, to say the least!  Okay, I'll recuse myself from this classic.  But did you ever notice how they only cover up a small part of the newspaper with their story?  The rest is unrelated!  I mean, they released the Ambrose Rose Estate, despite the fact that there's nine dead and 200 wounded?  Check, please!

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Spinach Study #3

Hmm, that's odd!  There's a couple Stooge films like this one... that is, like our next Popeye short called My Artistical Temperature... get it?  It's a play on "temperament."  Look it up on urbandictionary.com if you don't believe me!... Actually, better sidestep that page altogether.
Anyway, as with all Popeye cartoons good and lousy, Wikipedia's got all the dirt on all of them, including the instant case.  They rightly point out that versions have been edited for TV to purge the awful racist joke in it, and they point out what's pointed out at the very beginning during the Paramount logo, that there's patented processes at work in the animation.  That's what I have a problem with, because half of the fun of these things is the parts in "3D."  Unless it's the slight zoom at the beginning, I DIDN'T SEE IT!  There's no 3D in this one!  WTF!  What a ripoff.  I demand a parital refund.
As for the plot, well... as Seinfeld once said to Elaine and Putty that they're the only two people in New York for each other, apparently such is the case with Baking Soda Popeye and Vinegar Bluto.  I mean, neither one of them thought it would be a bad idea to open an art studio together?  No second thoughts about that decision?  And what about the people who approved this merger?  Are THEY not to blame a little bit?  Don't they know the disastrous track record?  And how close to 100% disaster it is?  No input from the police or emergency crews that have to clean up mess after mess after mess?
And so, once again, Olive throws a little gas on the fire that's already raging between Popeye and Bluto.  And as much as I hate to cut this short, not only does Popeye kick Bluto's ass and ruin all his paintings, he proves once and for all that sculpture is better than paintings, although a few of my genius painter artist type friends might disagree with that.
...okay, I took a closer look at the DVD of this one.  Apparently, that very first scene is a 3D background!  Unusual, because they usually only move the backgrounds left to right.  They dare to dolly into it a little bit!  What could've been...

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Orlando Bagwell

Well, you've come a long way from Repo Man, I'll give you that!

Gravity... man's oldest, most silent nemesis

Looks like Christmas is coming early to the Clooney Italian villa!  Who's going to get pranked this year?  Silvio Berlusconi?  The new Pope?  An unprecedented third week at #1 for Gravity!  This'll give Clooney's career a much needed refreshing, and for Sandra Bullock as well, of course.  Me myself, I'm not big on Bullock's back catalog.  Meanwhile, Stallone's cranking out movie after movie before Expendables 3 hits theaters.  In his latest, he and Schwarzenegger star in something called Escape Plan.  I like to think of it as a sequel to Lock Up.  Is it any good?  I've never seen it.  The last debut this week is The Fifth Estate.  Shame, seeing as how they advertised the hell out of it on TV.  If only there were some website where they could promote it!  Hmm...  This is decidedly less sexual fare than director Bill Condom usually does.  And his next looks even worse!  Old Sherlock Holmes?  I thought Robert Downey was already playing that... oh, s'z'nap!

All hail the Rainmaker

There's a crucial scene in Looper when... ah, skip it.  Seriously, though, I did want to like Looper, being sort of a fan of the time-travel genre, which is what movies are all about, when you get right down to it.  I mean, when you watch a Laurel and Hardy flick, are you not time-travelling back to the '30s with its comedy hats and its comedy exploding cars?
And so, let's time travel back to 2012, when Joseph Gordon-Levitt made four movies that year, one of which was Looper.  Alas, it was a small tree trying to grab at the leftover sunlight getting sucked up by the larger trees like Hotel Transylvania and Taken 2.  So, if all the critics loved it so much, why couldn't it take hold with the public?
...okay, so I'm not alone.  There's a few lost souls out there still willing to bash a Bruce Willis movie these days.  And to be fair, I see what writer director Rian Johnson is trying to do.  He also directed a few episodes of Breaking Bad, so he's set for life.  We've got nice CGI prosthetics for Joseph Gordon Levitt, we've got a film that looks like a damn film, and not some cheap thing shot on a (high-end) video camera, we've got a nice ode to motherhood this side of Quentin Tarantino, and not since Country Strong have I seen the older generation bitch-slap the younger generation so hard.
And so, that being said, there's the negatives.  As I mentioned earlier, I'm a fan of the time-travel genre.  That's why it pains me so to have to point to Timecop for logical consistency.  As bad as it is, it seems to be the only movie that has laid down the following crucial rule: if you touch your other self from another stream of time, you both get destroyed... and rather grossly at that!  (re: the Ron Silver character)  Of course, Back to the Future II kinda violates that rule... no, I take that back.  Marty told Marty Jr. to stay down and shut up in the crucial café scene.  Still, that was technically ball-breaking back then.
So, while I can't critique JGL's prosthetics, I am getting a little tired of the horizontal stripes that bright lights cause in films like this.  They're distracting, guys!  Kubrick and the Coens know that.  And while it's clearly a man's ode to motherhood, at least the writer-director doesn't have JGL or Bruce say something inane like "My Goddess, my Valkyrie."  Sheesh.
Anyway, there's a crucial scene where old Joe and young Joe are sitting in a café.  The Onion's critic pointed out that this movie is cool because... spoiler alert... the last hour of it is spent essentially on one farm.  Well, for the most part, the whole film seems to be stuck in Iowa... or Kansas.  I forgot the title card that said "Kansas 2044" already.  What major metropolis is that near, anyway?  Chicago?  At least they take that one vacation to Hong Kong, or wherever the hell Joe goes to grow up to become Bruce Willis.  Anyway, back to the café, where the waitress who kinda likes young Joe doesn't realize that the older guy he's sitting with is older Joe.  Older Joe tries to teach young Joe a thing or two about the future.  Maybe this is the genius of the script or something, but I couldn't help but not be impressed by the lack of depth in the lessons that old Joe tries to part to young Joe.  Young Joe himself was similarly skeptical, so it must be the genius.
And so, Looper is a brilliant piece of work, but it's also kind of derivative as well.  Take, for example, Looper's IMDb page.  Look under the section that says "People who liked this also liked..."  Notice how X-Men is in there?  If you watch Looper, you might figure out why.  Kinda like how Hancock is basically Superman, but more downbeat and with a slightly different backstory.  But I did like the look of the near future.  The music of the near future?  Classic blues, of course.
I should probably mention Emily Blunt.  I think she only had one fragment of a line where her English accent shone through, but otherwise she's the real deal.  Can playing the lead in the Katy Perry story be far behind? ;)

**1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Next Stooge: Booty and the Beast (non-porn version)

Long before Michael Mann was the king of the one-word-title working man's heist picture, there was the following Stooge short called Booty and the Beast, a play on their previous short called Hold That Lion!  Mostly because most of the second and third acts are cribbed from Lion!, including post-stroke Curly with his full head of hair.  Ah, nostalgia.
Now, most of the time, the Stooges are working with prop tools that they hit each other about the and with, but when it comes to electric power tools, even the Stooges sometimes have to work with the real deal Holyfield.  Such is the case here.  Larry plugs in a big-ass drill and prepares to drill open a safe.  Moe grabs onto the giant bit and Larry pulls the trigger.  It looks like Moe lightly hurts his hand, but not enough that he wusses out and yells "Cut!" and asks for first aid like some kind of wussy.  Tis neither the showbiz way nor the Stooge way, I say!  Not that I would know, of course.
I should probably mention the plot.  Kenneth MacDonald is at his smarmy best as a man trying to break into a house.  Our three Stooges are driving in a car which breaks down right in front of the house.  They run up to MacDonald and ask to use his phone.  See, they don't realize that he's trying to break in, and not the actual owner of the house.  Actually, it's kind of lucky for MacDonald that the Stooges are so gullible, as his explanations for the rather blatantly suspicious things he's doing are a tad lazy at best and criminally lazy at worst.
And so, as ordained by their newfound puppet master, the Stooges let the fox into the henhouse, and help him drill open a circular wall safe and blow it up.  The Stooges get lightly knocked out by the explosion, MacDonald makes off with the loot, and the Stooges incapacitate security guard Vernon Dent before embarking on their latest search for quick movie justice.  Hmm!  That light fixture that knocks out Vernon Dent looks awfully familiar.  In fact, this whole first act seems vaguely familiar; maybe I've just seen it already... I hope.
And so, we get a lightly reworked Hold That Lion.  The second half of Hold That Lion had to be reworked to remove all traces of the name Ichabod Slipp.  However, in our next Stooge short, Loose Loot, we'll be relying on the first half of Hold That Lion, and the name Ichabod Slipp will make its triumphant return!

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Bluto's Ear for Musickal Appreshkiashun

Once again, the filmmakers grow weary of the same old opening music when the title of Popeye's latest short is on display.  This time, they give us a preview of the sad accordion music to come after the credits.  And sure enough, there's musician J. Wellington Wimpy grinding away, with his pet monkey to collect tips from an appreciative audience.  (just Olive and Popeye so far).  And get this, Health Department: it's also the monkey's job to feed Wimpy hamburgers!  As we learned from Bridge Ahoy!, Wimpy just can't do a heck of a lot of work without consuming some beef.  You know, like Anthony Bourdain and pork.  What's up with that, anyway?  His trip to Israel must've been pure hell for that reason alone.
Of course, it's not a Popeye cartoon if Bluto's not there raising some hell.  And sure enough, he's appearing at the window of his apartment, and yells at Wimpy to get the hell out of there... not in those words, of course.  The monkey doesn't pick up on Bluto's vibe, unfortunately, and asks him for a coin all the same.  Devious Bluto's got a plan, though: he does technically give Wimpy a coin, but he heats it up with a match first.  The monkey goes ape, scaring a normally unflappable Wimpy, then jumping into the building's rain barrel to cool off.
Alas, this isn't enough for the enraged Bluto, and he redoubles his efforts to get rid of Wimpy.  Popeye comes down to ground level and tries to get Wimpy to stay.  Bluto also comes down to ground level and starts punching at Popeye.  Popeye dodges Bluto's fist, but pulls Wimpy into its path.  The cycle repeats several times, but it breaks when Bluto tells Wimpy to "G-G-G-Go!"  Can you guess how Popeye reacts to that?
Pretty soon, it's tag-team butt kicking against Bluto.  Even Olive gets into the act and breaks a giant vase over Bluto's head.  And then the spinach.  By the end, to cut to the chase, Bluto finds himself passed out and lodged into a piano, and hooked up to a crank, of course.  Popeye's turning the crank, and the busted piano is now belting out a tune.  Popeye, Olive, the monkey, and Wimpy are all there, happily singing away.  Bluto should probably move out of that apartment, to say the least.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Pierre Bagley

Sorry, I don't have the list in front of me.  I hate to say it, but I am the Movie Hooligan so I guess I better... I can't tell if Pierre is a man or a woman!  At least, not from their photo on the IMDb.  But apparently it's a guy, and it might be the same guy embroiled in this Steve Vaught business that I just read about on Wikipedia.  Well, if the guy's just trying to lose weight, I feel your pain, brother.  I'm down to that mean nasty last 40 pounds myself.  But if the guy's trying to be the next Subway Jared, well... ah, this Vaught guy sounds like a primadonna anyway.
Alas, I guess Bagley's not that interesting.  Sorry, going to get back to them.  But as I learned a long time ago, the world of the documentary is for the birds, and Bagley's trying to get into the feature film game.  2013 saw the finishing and possible releasing of From the Rough, the latest entry in the hotter-than-hot PG-rated sports docudrama.  Well, working with Agent Carter's half the battle.  If they offer you a chance to direct an episode of Person of Interest... take it!  Take it, take it, TAKE IT!!!!!

Schindler's Slave

Sorry, going for the attention grabbing headlines again.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, even Obama himself must be getting tired of how he's affecting the culture.  For example, they wanted to make 12 Years a Slave eight years ago, but somehow they couldn't sell the idea.  But even more curious than that... and I don't want to sound like a JFK assassination nut here, but the golden anniversary of that tragic event is fast approaching, and Paul Giamatti was recently seen on The Daily Show flogging his new movie Parkland.  He also happens to have a part in 12 Years a Slave along with Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt, who are also in a little movie called The Counselor together!  As far as I know, Giamatti's not in The Counselor.  He's pretty cool, but not that cool.
Anyway, this week's performers.  Gravity is still on top at #1, followed by Tom Hanks' debut, Captain Phillips... or the sequel to Volunteers, as I prefer to think of it.  Also, Machete Kills does way better than the original, but the third installment's probably going to happen nonetheless.  Let's see, Lindsay Lohan was in the first, Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen in the second... who's the latest and greatest super-burned-out mega-train wreck of a celebrity that they can put in the third?  Suggestions?

There Will Be Durante

Well, for those of you who think Cuckoo on a Choo-Choo represents the lowest of the lows in Stooge films, here's a slight step back up the slope!  It's called Up in Daisy's Penthouse, and I hope you're looking forward to it.  Me myself, I think I can probably take it or leave it for some reason.  Let's find out why!

...oh, I was thinking of Gypped in the Penthouse.  Never mind.  Wow!  What a week!  Popeye AND the Stooges end up hanging from flagpoles.  They're not sick but they're not well, no doubt about it.  Anyway, Shemp gets to stretch his acting chops in this remake of 3 Dumb Clucks, where Curly got the  same opportunity.  This time, Shemp plays himself and his father, a rich oil man, who's trading in his old wife for a new, younger wife.  It's the Anna Nicole Smith story all over again, but with a twist.  The Daisy in question is plotting with two hoodlums to have the rich oil man killed after the wedding's made official.  Boy, those were the days, or something.  I thought it was the rich oil man who has people killed!  Must be a middle-class oil man.
Now, maybe it's just me, but it sounded like Moe's heart wasn't in it when he first gets out of bed and says "C'mon, boys, we gotta stop this wedding!"  But I must give a shout out to my Stooge-aholic friend who likes the funny sound effect at about 14:26 when Shemp goes sliding up the staircase bannister.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Safeky Last

I seem to recall that pattern from geometry class.  Anyway, our next Popeye cartoon is called The Paneless Window Washer... I still don't get it.  And once again the IMDb has let me down.  No one's done the "Connections" tab for this one!  I'm pretty sure Popeye shows a bit of this to Wimpy in Customers Wanted.... nope, just Let's Get Movin' and The Twisker Pitcher.  Small world, because there's a bit from Let's Get Movin' that gets recycled here, when Popeye finds himself taking the stairs faster than 10 feet per second squared so he can punch a falling Bluto before Bluto jellies up the sidewalk.
Anyway, the plot.  Business is slow for Bluto as a window washer, so he takes the mud on the street and puts it onto the windows of the skyscraper across the street.  No one's around to see him, so it's the perfect economic crime.  Using his fireman's training from The Two Alarm Fire, he's able to get the mud onto many windows with a hose.  So far, Bluto's plan is working fine until he runs afoul of Olive, Public Stenographer, who's hired Popeye to wash the windows.  Let the next pissing match begin!
I'm loathe to call this one a classic, as it has a lot of Bluto choking Olive.  Also, no stereoscopic 3D background.  A lot of good mumbling in this one, though, and chewing sounds when Popeye engulfs his trusty spinach.  Three stars it is then.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Kwyn Bader

Born in 1969, Kwyn struck it big with 1999's Loving Jezebel... and that was it!  Well, maybe he finally found a Jezebel who's unattached, got married, raised a family, and is now teaching film someplace back East.  In the Internet Age, there are still some things that are better left alone... HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I'll try defying gravity... and you won't bring me down

Boy!  Some things are harder to find on the internet than others.  I didn't realize that that song they play at the gym over and over was from the TV show the mortals call Glee.  Well, I'll have a more respectful attitude towards this comedy show from now on, I promise.  Anyway, George Clooney does it again in one of the seven plots: cowboy, astronaut,... what's the other five?  Seriously, though, is this some elaborate prank on Sandra Bullock?  Can't push her into a swimming pool now, that's for sure!  What about her cell phones?  Meanwhile, at the other end of the Top 10, Enough Said rises from lower than 10th place.  And it's been out for three weeks?  Tony Soprano's not happy about this!  Li'l bit.  Where's all the loyal fans now?  Hmm??  Or do we not like Elaine so much, is that it?  She may have broken the Seinfeld curse on TV, but movies is still another domain, apparently.  Poor thing.  Poor rich thing.  Speaking of which, Justin Timberlake's latest movie, Runner Runner, debuts at #3.  Where's all his loyal fans now?  Hmm??  Are they so busy that they can't go to his latest movie?  He's got another one in December, you know!  Oh wait... that's a Coen brothers thing.  That's chopped liver!  Phooey.
And last but not least, the other debut is something called Pulling Strings.  Well, I don't go to church, so I didn't hear about this one.

Short Reviews - September 2013

Whoa, dude.  Am I right?... sorry, Spoiler Alert.  Walt kills someone else.  I guess this doesn't affect the Emmys so much, anyways.

Oh boy!  We've got cable again.  Time to catch up on all the bad movies I've been missing.

The Apparition - This is how old and out of touch I'm getting.  I thought this was a sci-fi epic set far into the future.  Turns out it's just got a lot of modern technology I've never used!  A SmartPhone, for instance.  Man, I'm so unhip.

Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story - With Jeff Daniels as ... Tom Noonan?

All the Rage - With Jeff Daniels as... Warren Harding?  As in, PRESIDENT Warren Harding?

The Naked Brothers Band: The Movie - With Deborah Offner as Miss Offner

Exit Wounds - Alas, Elliot Goldenthal doesn't get credit for the music, seeing as how they cribbed part of the soundtrack from "Heat."  But there are those of us who remember, L!

Batman & Robin - Then again...

Miaou - For all those 'Words with Friends' players out there stuck with nothing but vowels

Last Vegas - Makes 2000's "The Crew" look kinda prescient

Sweet Stooge of Youth

Yup, it's time for Cuckoo on a Choo-Choo.  There's just no getting around it.
Well, some of these Stooge shorts are more memorable than others.  Now, according to the infallible IMDb, Choo Choo is considered one of the worst Stooges.  Which is absolutely correct, of course, but you gotta understand.  Every bad film is unique in its own peculiar way.  If you're at all like me (scary thought, I know), the first time you see Cuckoo, you can't help but think to yourself "...what the hell is this?"  Even the Stooges find themselves bound and gagged by restraints of rigid conventions, of which they struggle to free themselves from.  In this case, through contemporary literary references ... at least, contemporary for their time.  And you gotta hand it to the Stooges: they almost beat Tennessee Williams at his own game, if you think about it.  Why, what could be a more tawdry subject than using vibrating electrical devices to enhance sensations?  Only Shemp doesn't realize what's happening to him, so it's okay.
Boy!  Wikipedia's down on this one too!  Give me some decent trivia, for God's sake!  For instance, I thought I read someplace or heard from someone that they were originally going to call this A Streetcar Named Schmow, but stiffer heads at Columbia demurred to Warner Bros.  Warner Bros. produced A Streetcar Named Desire, but I suppose that even if Columbia themselves produced A Streetcar Named Desire, they would reject the Stooges' title.  In any event, I can see why Larry would think of this as one of his favourites, given the positively ripping impression of Stanley Kowalski that he does.  Wotta pig!  Then again, I thought Scrambled Brains was his favorite.  Dayamn!  Now my brains are getting scrambled!
But let's re-examine the superfans' perspective... and ridicule it some more.  See, if Cuckoo is one of the worst Stooge shorts ever made, what does that make the Joe Besser 16, for example?  I guess they fall into that anonymous middle ground of shorts that should just be forgotten to death.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

...our first compilation Popeye?

Long-term memory... failing... if only there were some sort of blog that kept track of all these Popeye cartoons...  Wait!  It's coming back to me now.  I think this is the second.  Adventures of Popeye was the first.  And the production values were sure different on that one.  At least they had the originality of combining live action and aminash-kins, ack ack ack!  How do you spell out Popeye's laugh phonetically, incidentally?  That's the kind of thing I should know.
Anyway, the premise this time is strictly restricted to the animated world.  We start with Olive walking down the street, flanked by Popeye and Bluto at the same time.  Olive sees an ad at an Army Recruitment center and swoons.  She's just nuts about a clean shaven man!... I mean, a man in uniform.  This was just before WWII flooded the soldier marketplace.  Like Pavlov's dogs, Bluto and Popeye hustle into the office and tell the man behind the desk that they want to enlist.  By the ancient rules of dramatic convention, there's only room for one.  Time for our next pissing match.
In lieu of owning competing penny arcades, Bluto and Popeye have to resort to flip-book technology to show the recruiter why they're the best man for the job.  Sounds like the cop from Cops is Always Right!  Neato.  And so, Bluto shows a clip from ... well, all the films are listed here.  I can understand that the crew of the Fleischer studios would need a break after two epic productions like The Spinach Roadster and Sindbad the Sailor, so this is what it looks like.  To be fair, I think they re-did the audio again for these film clips.
One bit of animation that's kind of interesting in a self-referential way is when Popeye eats the spinach and starts beating up Bluto with an army theme.  Popeye repeatedly bounces Bluto off a wall, turning Bluto into a blur that looks like Bluto marching.  An ode to the old animation of Muybridge, combined with an unintentional ode to SmartPhone technology to come (some 80 odd years later).  Do people still show videos to others in person on handheld devices anymore?  Or is it all just second hand hyperlinks?

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Obba Babatundé

Man, I don't know why Jonathan Demme keeps working with you.  The Young and the Restless?  Puh-leeeeeeeze.

Another chance of Meatballs

Once again, this snuck up on me!  I mean, I've seen all the new ads for Prisoners hailing it as the #1 movie in America.  This weekend, however, as Bill Maher might quip, it's a movie even more American: the sequel to 2009's sleeper hit Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 1.  Where were the ads?  How am I so out of it?  Might be for the best, but whatever they're doing right, they must be doing something right.
There were also three other debuts this weekend, for a grand total of four.  Crowded box office!  I think last year there were five in one weekend, but four's been the max this year, according to my crack research.  At #3 it's Ron Howard's latest flick called Rush.  This may be as close as he'll get to that film that he's wanted to make about the time between 1982 and 2007, only much more awesome.  But judging from the previews on TV, he seems to be stuck in the green screen studio, while his crack technicians are out there in the real world getting all the background shots.  The well-publicized Don Juan.... I mean Don Jon came in at #5, so to speak, which leaves another that flew in under my radar, Baggage Claim at #4.  So let me see what this is all about... well, I hate to jump to snap conclusions, but it looks like we've got the next Tyler Perry on our hands!  Just stay away from Oprah, bitch.  She's Ty's girl, exclusive-like.

The Man-Stooge-ian Candidate ... (so terrible. Ugh.)

You know, I believe it was Evil Lawrence Kasdan, AKA ... Gillooly?  Scaife?  Norquist!  That's it.  Grover Norquist... I was drawing a blank on his name.  He once said something about drowning government in a bathtub, which somehow never appealed to me, even on a visceral level.  I guess this is why I'll never get anywhere in life.  But now I think I know where he got the inspiration for that iconic quote: our next Stooge film!  Spoiler alert: I'll cut right to the chase this time, seeing as how I'm cutting these reviews short now.  The Stooges fall bass-ackwards into the political arena, and at the end of the film, they end up drowning the bad guys in a bathtub!  Well, the two guys hit their heads on the bathroom wall first, then slump into the tub, so that's half the battle right there.  Then they push the unlucky guys down into the water.  Then the Stooges sit on top of them as they cheerfully soap up, fully clothed, and start to take a bath as they sit on the bad guys.
Need more be said?  Probably not, but there's a lot of little moments to savor in this one, as there usually are in these things.  For one, Shemp starts to do a somersault, and he lands head first into his footbath.  Again with the water!  His ears fill up with water, and there's a loud booming noise on the soundtrack, and Moe and Larry immediately run to his aid.  Yes, it was just that bad.
...oh, Jesus.  They're not going to do the live parrot inside a cooked turkey bit AGAIN?!

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

STILL the most phenomenal, extra-special kind of Popeye cartoon

You know, in the proverbial Pantheon of the three two-reel color Popeye shorts, it's Ali Baba first, Sindbad second, and Aladdin and his Lamp a sadly distant third.  That's the way it's always gonna be, and no one will change that.  Well, for one thing, Aladdin doesn't have any 3-D backgrounds, so perhaps its reputation is partly deserved.
But as everything moves online and mostly to YouTube, there's something to be said for DVDs besides the better picture quality.  They've included the full opening on the DVD which always used to get severely cut on broadcast TV, your TBSes and Cartoon Networks, what have you.  Why, even the old laserdisc wasn't completely restored!  Wotta gyp!
As for the actual cartoon itself, well, I've already watched it anew recently, and the tears came to my eyes at certain points, and as the years pass, my love for Bluto just grows and grows.  Great singing voice, you gotta give him that.  But he is the bad guy and Popeye has to ultimately triumph, what with the spinach and all.  And I didn't even refer to the Island of Bluto... I mean, Sindbad... as a man-cave!  Damn, I just did.  Oops.
Hard to say what my favorite sequence is, as they're all top notch.  Therefore, I'll give a shout-out to the part where Sindbad's singing his theme to Popeye, and all of Sindbad's buddies come out of hiding and point at him.  You might have noticed this as well: there's some kind of caveman among the animals who mouths the part "Sindbad the Sailor" in the song.  Ah, those Fleischers.  Such attention to detail.  "What, is the circus in town?" Popeye mutters as the song continues.  I didn't even have to re-watch it to remember that part!  It's all in my noodle!  Four stars.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

---This just in (September 2021) - I and my companions were watching another old classic, something called Roast-Beef and Movies (1934).  For now, it's available here on YouTube (TM) (R) (C), for those of you who didn't just TiVo The Swarm (1978) off of Turner Classic Movies.  And yes, it features a pre-Stooges Curly Howard.  But for me right now, clearly the star of that picture is a feller named George Givot.  He made his bones a little bit earlier than Curly, so he gets to be the star.  Now, maybe it's just me, because it's not on Mr. Givot's bio page or Other Works page, but he and his mannerisms seem to have been the influence of Boola, the Two-Headed Giant.  Okay, that's all I got.

Auteur Watch - Richard Ayoade

My hip friends like this guy, so I gotta pay him some respects.  And to be fair, he does look like he's been busy.  Check out the IMDb résumé!  Actor, writer, director, producer, miscellaneous crew, thanks, self ... I think that's about all the categories that one person can have!  Almost seems like appearing in The Watch was a step back for him!  At least, with all his hip friends in private.  So the only question is, what's his favorite decade?  This child of the greatest decade of all time, including Cretaceous and Devonian, the late '70s?  To have MTV in your adolescence during its high art period before Madonna published her Sex book?  How could you not go on to such success?  Surely his favorite decade is the '90s, a fine time to keep your nose to the grindstone and plant the seeds for future success.  Anonymity was his weapon then, absorbing the culture like a sponge his secret power, for it was during the 2000s that the work began to flow.  He wasn't afraid to conquer the wasteland that was TV back then.  I mean, if you get a role like Dean Lerner, well... I don't know, is it any good?  I've heard The Mighty Boosh is.  Acting, directing, writing... dayamn, this guy's the real triple threat deal.
Alas, the decades to come look grim indeed.  Maybe it's just me.  Are we going to yearn for the '70s forever?  But Ayoade's headed for the higher echelons, and might be doomed to stay there permanently.  Work less for more money, that's the dream.  You can do that now!  You'd really be set for life if you directed an episode of Parks and Recreation, but Community's not a bad start.  Weekends with Lorne Michaels for the rest of his life.  That's the price you pay!

Take THAT, Colbert Bump!

So there's only two episodes of Breaking Bad left.  Time for that final confrontation between Walt and Jesse... at least, laying the groundwork for it.  They'll devote one episode to Walt setting up his new life in New Hampshire.  Then perhaps something happens to his barrel of money.  He'll lose it somehow and have to come back.  He gets the vial of ricin, maybe has to kill neighbor Carol, then head off to the High Noon-esque finale.  Still kind of exciting, nevertheless!  It's like when some employees on The Simpsons phoned Variety to leak the ending of "Who Shot Mr. Burns?"  Variety refused to do it.  This kind of thing only comes along once in a long while.  At least once every twenty years.
Anyway, back to the business at hand.  Prisoners is #1 at the box office, and Stew-Beef had on Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal.  A direct correlation?  That's two #1 movies for Jackman this year, and a shade less than two months apart!  He'll be able to write his own ticket for a while now, but he'll still have to stick with the boiled chicken diet.  The only other debut this week is something called Battle of the Year, giving only a typically average debut at #5 with five million dollars.  How perfect is that?  Maybe it'll be a cult hit on video, who knows.  There's a third debut, but it's the original Wizard of Oz.  What's that all about?  And isn't it a little late for that?  The Oz prequel was so four months ago!

Next Stooge: Jents in a Gam

Let's see if anyone notices... so many great images to choose from this one, and there can only be one.  At least, that's how I roll.
Somehow I think they should call this one "Jane Austen's Gents in a Jam."  Or maybe Edith Wharton.  It seems to smack of a haute couture literary reference, at least in terms of the whole inheritance angle.  That's right, the Stooges find themselves on the verge of Shemp's inheritance, as with Curly's inheritance before that.  Only this time, someone else will beat the government to the lion's share of it.  See if you can guess who!  It all starts innocently enough with Shemp and Larry asleep.  That's gratitude for ya.  Apparently the motivation of having a job isn't enough for some people.  Moe talked the landlady into trading their labor for back rent as a stopgap measure.  When they f... screw that up, it's out for good.  At least, until Shemp's Uncle Goopy... I mean, Uncle Finnius... Phineas... is about to pay him a visit.
Somehow the filmmakers knew that this wasn't enough of a story.  How about throwing an insanely jealous husband into the mix?  Yeah, that oughta do the trick!  He's played by Mickey Simpson, best known for such films as Giant and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.  Spoiler alert: I don't think Mickey plays the gorilla.  It all starts with the borrowing of that proverbial cup of sugar.  I wonder if anyone rolled their eyes in the audience over that one.  I guess it took a while for disgust of clichés to spread as widely as it has today.
Uncle Phineas, played by Emil Sitka, the Fourth Stooge, gets the worst of it.  At one point, he gets too scared to even open the door, which is the right reaction.  He's able to make it out into the hall, but things go from bad to worse from there as he has to brave the proverbial Running of the Stooges.  Pamplona's closer than we thought, as it turns out!  In the big finale, Phineas gets trampled much like the guy at the end of the opening credits of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World... dayamn!  YouTube really does have everything now!  The wife of the jealous husband gives Phineas one last kick as the rest have run by... at least, that's what the sound effects suggest.
As for the Stooges and their group dynamics, well, Larry seems to be a little sore over his treatment in Corny Casanovas.  I don't remember him having such a problem with Moe's leadership before, and verbally expressing it as such!  If only I took better notes...
Anyway, so is it a classic?  The bigwigs at Columbia must've thought so!  We watched this one a lot back in the dark ages of VCR tapes.  They only put out what they felt were the best ones.  I'll say three and a half.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

"Oh, what a mess! Look at my prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrretty car, will ya?"

Yes, our next Popeye cartoon is the infamous The Spinach Roadster.  I must confess that I've already watched it several times before having to review it, so I really don't even need to re-watch it!  A novel approach to movie reviewing, hopefully.
And so, the next pissing match between Popeye and Bluto is done through the automobile.  We start with Popeye and his modest hunk of junk clunking its way down the road, with an inflated glove for a horn.  He stops in front of Olive's apartment.  Now some of you more cynical types out there might wonder why anyone would have all their potted plants in such a way that they all fall off the ledge when you open your window covers, or you might even wonder how someone would even do that in the first place!  Let's see, I'll dangle them all from strings and gently lower them down onto the ledge from the rooftop...
Meanwhile, Bluto drives up in his half-car, half-grounded plane.  "Why not go for a ride in a good car?" Bluto asks Olive.  Well, that's progress!  Bluto at least acknowledges Popeye's existence.  Olive chooses Popeye, despite the inherent setbacks.  Then, we get a very very long patented Fleischer 3D background.  They're getting more ambitious, especially with next week's two-reeler!
Bluto tries tricking Popeye into taking an outrageous detour, thereby informing Matt Groening's love of anagrams.  "I hope he's not too dumb to read it!" sneers Bluto.  Popeye gets the last laugh, however, and Bluto resorts to brute force, eventually tearing Popeye's car apart, pretty much piece by piece.  Olive protests wildly, then says to Bluto "Don't you touch me!!!!"  Love that part.
And then, Popeye gets the spinach, yada yada yada.  It ends a bit like that one about skiing with Olive in similar peril.  One of my viewing companions said "Ah, Bluto's an old softie" because here's another instance where he ends up sobbing.  Another four-star classic.  Jack Mercer's chewing sounds are getting better and better, for one.  And Popeye's opening ode to the auto is strangely not that antequated!

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Reece Auguiste

Oh good!  Another short one.  Time for another flashback to a cusp between decades: the 80s and 90s.  For me, the '80s is the last decade in which its icons are clearly identifiable.  After the 90s, it all turns to mush, as the flow of information across the globe accelerates, and bands like Deee-Lite get publicity.  Wonder whatever happened to them?  They're probably on Wikipedia or something.  Then again, the 2000s will always be remembered for those who lived it as the time of two things: the Lord of the Rings movies, and the failure of national American politics.  Can't get much clearer than that!  But back to Reece Auguiste, known for Twilight City, a documentary that's not about the goings-on in Forks, Washington, and Mysteries of July.  The trail runs cold after that.  I guess no one was interested in what mysteries that Reece would conjure up after that, and I'm guessing Reece explored the mysteries of parenthood rather than filmmaking for the next twenty odd years.  But they do get thanks for something called Jenny's Dreamland!  Hope springs eternal.  If Bruce Wayne can get back into the game after getting his back broken, so can Reece, damn it.  So can Reece.

Friday the 13th

So there are only three episodes of Breaking Bad left.  Now, I don't want to try and crack the code too much, but here goes anyway.  Seeing as how Schrader and Gomie are seriously out-gunned, I have to think that at least Gomie's going to die.  Seems like they only kill off one main character per episode.  The show's creators have painted themselves pretty far into a corner this time.  Now, judging from the cliffhangers they gave us for the aftermath, Walter returns with his New Hampshire identity to get the vial of ricin from the house, and he's got an automatic weapon... maybe they'll start with that tonight!  Leave us hanging.  I think he's heading for a final showdown with Todd's extended family.  It's a little too late to introduce new characters, but we'll see.
Whatever happens, I don't think Skyler's going to take it well... oh, right!  The box office.  Well, the bland Patrick Wilson scores again with only his second horror flick this year.  Seems like he's made more somehow.  This one's called Insidious: Chapter 2.  It's indeed insidious, as I'm not even familiar with chapter one!  Here's the link to chapter one.  I dunno... I can't get into these PG-13 horror flicks.  I mean, if you're going to make a horror flick, you might as well go for the R gusto, but maybe that's just me.  The other debut this week is The Family, Luc Besson's latest.  And judging from the A-list cast (the '80s-'90s era A-list cast) and the fact that Besson actually directed this one himself, it must be a cut above the dreck he usually just produces.  And where's his super-scribe in crime Robert Mark Kamen?  Why am I the only one who has to keep coming to this guy's defense? ...Taken 3 and a Transporter TV series?  I guess Besson now keeps Kamen away from his A-list babies as well.  Ouch!
Meanwhile, I almost totally forgot!  That Mortal Instruments thing is already gone after two weeks!  Maybe they should've explained better to the rubes out there that it's based on an international best seller, and that there's, like, fifty books in the series.  Or maybe they should just put it on TV like Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or something.  Will no one preach the gospel of photogenic monster fighters?  No one at all?

Stop Calling, Stop Calling, I Don't Wanna Talk Any More

Well, sometimes you gotta go for the Lady Gaga reference, am I right?  Anyway, if David Mamet had to pick two major influences on cinema, I think he'd say the president of the United States (everything from Absolute Power to Eagle Eye) and technology.  He probably wouldn't cite Hold the Wire as a good example of technology's influence, but I would, damn it.  And why?  Because I just saw it, that's why!  What other reason is there in this ADD-afflicted world of ours?
The best example comes at the end when Popeye and Olive are swaying back and forth on top of a telephone pole.  Popeye sings his usual variation on the ending theme and toots his pipe twice.  Now, normally that's the end of the cartoon, but this time we get a few extra seconds of people on the phone shouting for the operator.  I know, I know, it's just their voices coming through exposed wires, and that this is highly dubious at best and criminally negligent at worst.  Cartoons keep finding new ways to insult our intelligence, dontcha think?  But the larger point I was trying to make is that technology changes things (THINGS CHANGE!!!!!!), like the normally rigid plot structure of a Popeye cartoon.  These days they end with the words "go to Popeye.com" or something like that... incidentally, where do you go on the web to find Popeye's official e-home?  Time to get distracted by something else.  Apparently there's at least three different web homes for Popeye, as you would expect, but popeye.com by far has the most state-of-the-art looking web page of the three.
Oh, right.  The plot.  I always remembered this one because Popeye was talking quietly on the phone and he says to Olive "Gee, Olive, you're the berries."  Oh, the things that stick in the brain's craw.  Anyway, Olive's up to her usual tricks, reading "Love and More Love" Magazine.  Popeye calls her up on the phone, but she's not interested, saying to Popeye that he's just not romantic enough.  Well, Olive's memory just isn't good enough!  How do you like that?  There's nothing Popeye can't do with a little spinach.  She seems to forget that.
Meanwhile, Bluto comes walking along, flowers in hand, and he can't help but overhear Olive's phone conversation.  Popeye sounds like he's talking into a coffee can, lol.  At this crucial juncture, Bluto decides to take technology into his own hands.  He downright shimmies up the telephone pole, once again to the music of the old snake charmer.  When it comes to breaking up Olive and Popeye, Bluto is indeed an obese snake in the grass.  Bluto fiddles with the telephone wires and is somehow able to intercept Popeye's call.  He imitates Popeye and says insulting things to Olive.  It's WarGames and Ferris Bueller all rolled into one, I tells ya.  ...I just dated myself, didn't I?  Surely there's someone other than Matthew Broderick in movies that's synonymous with hacking?  The only other one I can think of is the pasty young lead in Hackers (1995), but that's it.
Alas, Bluto has too much fun imitating Popeye, and Popeye has time enough to run to Olive's house.  Popeye calls to Olive through her window, and she gets to see what Bluto was up to.  Popeye then climbs up the telephone pole to kick some ass.  This Popeye short's probably got the funniest example of a time when Popeye and Bluto hit each other, then have to regain their balance.  Four stars.  This one needs to be brought into the fold of that short list of Popeye classics.  It's been out of the fold for far too long.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Leisure Suit Lawrence

Well, seeing as how I'm skimping on the Stooge reviews, the least I can do is use larger images.  I've got Volume Seven!  Tee hee hee... Time for one of Larry's most colorful roles in He Cooked His Goose.  The real-life Lawrence, however, was a man of integrity, and this apparently wasn't as favorite a role for him as Scrambled Brains was.  To give you an idea of the kind of character he plays in He Cooked His Goose, he tells Moe "I never saw your wife!  I'm engaged to three beautiful girls!"  There's a contradiction in there someplace, but I'm not perceptive enough to see it.
In the opening scene, we meet Millie, a delightful young girl who's engaged to Shemp... now, I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record here, but it's time for a little more math.  Millie is played by the fetching Angela Stevens, born 1925.  Shemp was born in 1895... that's thirty years, isn't it?  And Louis Feinberg... I mean, Larry, was born in 1902!  That's slightly better at twenty-three years difference.  Holy Elektra Complex, Batman!  I'm just sayin'.  Okay, next topic.
And so, Millie sees through Larry, and forgives Shemp his faults (so far, kleptomania and gingivitis).  Larry fails to woo Millie, so it's back to work at his pet shop, where he smokes a cigar longer than his head.  Never eat anything or smoke anything bigger than your head, I'm always told.
Meanwhile, angry Moe barges into Larry's office and tells Larry to stay away from his wife.  Larry calms Moe down expertly, and offers him smoke and drink.  Alas, Moe engages in neither of the two main gentlemen's pastimes.  Surely, Moe will accept at least one token of Larry's belated friendship!  "I'll have a little bird seed, if you don't mind!  It always calms my nerves," says Moe, and grabs a handful of bird seed.  Social fabric rewoven.  Moe eats that bird seed like it's a bit of the old Southern comforter and starts chirping away.  Larry can see that there's something wrong with this guy.  A blind man can see that.
Oh, I almost forgot.  The neat feature of this Stooge short is the inclusion of Larry's interior monologue.  When Larry starts to think, eerie hypnosis music starts playing.  With Moe, Larry gets a notion, and tells him that he's going to find this ratfink that's horning in on Moe's wife.  Oh, another thing I forgot to mention: the Stooges aren't close friends in this one like they normally are.  Moe and Larry are downright adversarial, in fact!  But they nevertheless slap each other and poke their eyes with the greatest of ease.  In fact, at one point in the proceedings, it looks like Larry pokes Moe right in the eyes, as opposed to Moe's eyebrow ridges just above the eyes, the way it's supposed to be done.  In Larry's defense, he's more often the pokee rather than the poker, especially when he does his God-awful "I had my eyes closed!" routine.  Gee wiz.
There's also a part where Shemp dresses up as Santa, but I've already said enough about this one.  Four stars.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Eugene Ashe

According to his IMDb bio, he's a distant relative of tennis great Arthur Ashe and actor Gregory Peck.  Boy, mo' legacy, mo' problems, am I right?  But if he had to do it all over again, he might skip that guest appearance on Arsenio Hall.  Ouch.

...oh, right! Riddick

There is much joy in Twohy-ville, as mighty Riddick has not struck out.  Quite the opposite, in fact.... Sure, it's just a piddly 18 million, but the economy's taken a downturn lately (not 1991 down, but down ne'theless), and a home run's a home run.  At most 52 films a year get to claim that!  Kids are heading back to school, and they're spending all their time on SnapChat, or some such thing.  Who's got time, really?